


I Will Do Science To It

by redstapler



Category: Portal, Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:07:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redstapler/pseuds/redstapler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In which the Warehouse ladies do what they must, because they can.</i> (Summary by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow">minkhollow</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Do Science To It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Claudia harrumphed as a warning box interrupted her browser window for the third time in fifteen minutes. She had no idea what the warning was—it predated her systems by several years—and she had no idea what “Code Lemon” meant anyhow. Unlike pretty much everything else to do with the Warehouse, nothing came up when she searched for it. Finally, when the alert came through a fourth time five minutes later, she threw her hands up in disgust. 

“Okay, Code Lemon! I have no idea what you are, but you’re seriously grinding my gears.” Claudia picked up her Farnsworth and contacted Mrs. Frederic, who answered right away.

“Hello, Claudia.” 

“Hey, Mrs. F. Sorry to bother you, but I keep getting interrupted by a Code Lemon, and—”

“Code Lemon? I’ll be right there.” Mrs. Frederic blinked out from the Farnsworth’s screen, and walked through the door moments later.

“Whoa,” Claudia said, blinking. “I take it Code Lemon is a bit more along the lines of Code Mauve, then?”

“Code Lemon is a serious situation that technically should not exist.”

“Come again?”

“In the mid-20th Century, the Warehouse was subcontracted by the US Government to provide oversight for a research facility called Aperture Science. It was run by a megalomaniac who, by a complete stroke of luck managed to produce some viable breakthroughs.” 

“How can an agency be subcontracted by the government that runs it?” Myka asked as she and HG entered the office.

“You will find that governments can do all sorts of things that make little sense, especially when scientific breakthroughs are involved.”

“What kind of breakthroughs are we talking here?” Claudia asked.

“Oh, you know. Guns that create portals, paint that lets you bounce or accelerate. AI.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Let me guess,” HG ventured. “The fellow who ran it went insane with power, disregarded all safeguards, and then an AI took it over.”

“Very good, HG. Yes, in 2000. When that happened, the entire facility went on lockdown.”

Claudia looked up. “According to this,”—Claudia had gone ahead and looked up Aperture Science—”The lockdown was internal.”

“Correct. We had nothing to do with it.”

“So you mean the rogue AI locked itself down?”

“Bizarre as it sounds, that’s the best we can guess. No one’s been in or out in twelve years.” 

Claudia’s brow furrowed. “So…what’s Code Lemon, then?” 

“It’s the result of some very clever planning ahead by Warehouse agents several decades ago. In 1982, a basic subroutine was embedded deep in the facility’s infrastructure code. It sends simple pings every fifteen years, and if the responding “pong,” for example, does not return, it sends us an alert. So now we know something is really wrong over there, and that we should investigate.”

“What kind of situation are you talking about walking into?” Myka, ever the Secret Service Agent.

“Unfortunately, we sincerely have no way of knowing. It could be a tomb, it could be a biodome. It could be a contained nuclear blast.”

“Another day for a Warehouse Agent, you’re saying?” Myka looked tired, and she had only just arrived.

“Precisely, Agent Bering.”

“Great.”

Myka, HG, Claudia, and Mrs. Frederic set out for the wilds of the Michigan Upper Peninsula. They arrived at the location plotted on their GPS to find an aluminum shack in the middle of a wheat field. Still, Claudia mused, the Warehouse didn’t look much different from outside. It did, however, have slightly more glamour than a shack. Claudia took out at her netbook.

“Well that’s weird.” 

HG turned around.

“What’s that, Claudia?”

“Well, for the last hour or so, we’ve had no signal to speak of from anywhere. But here? It’s a full-bars, bury the needle hotspot. We may as well be plugged into an ethernet jack.” Just out of curiosity, Claudia attempted to download The Encyclopedia Britannica. It downloaded onto a thumb drive in seconds. “Wow, we have GOT to get this setup at the B&B!” 

“Not likely, Claud. Those wires are old.”

“What wires, Myka? This is some serious Cloud acti—AUGH!” Abruptly, Claudia’s screen shorted out and was replaced with an error message.

—WHO ARE YOU—HOW DID YOU GAIN ACCESS TO THIS NETWORK?—

Claudia blinked in shock.

“Hey, Mrs. F? What did you say about AI?” Mrs. Frederic walked over to Claudia from the row of wheat she was investigating for an entrance of some kind. 

“This facility has been closed for twelve years after an unshackled AI went rogue. That’s all we know. Why?”

“Because someone’s trying to talk to me on my computer. And something tells me it’s not human.” HG hurried over excitedly.

“What gives you that idea, Claudia?” Claudia handed her the netbook. 

“Oh, I don’t know. The capslock gave me a clue. Even in 2000, people knew better than that.”

“It does look a bit shouty, yes,” HG said as Myka walked up.

“That’s because it is shouting. In net parlance.” Myka loved getting a chance to pretend she maybe knew something about online culture. 

“Did you reply?” Claudia typed quickly.

—GREETINGS, AI! APOLOGIES FOR THE INTRUSION, MY NETBOOK IS PROGRAMMED TO AUTOMATICALLY TAP INTO ANY AVAILABLE WIFI. WE COME IN PEACE—

“Just did.”

—WHAT MAKES YOU SAY I AM AN AI? I COULD BE A SURVIVOR OF THE…I MEAN I COULD BE A RESIDENT HERE AT APERTURE LABS—

Claudia, Mrs. Frederic, HG, and Myka all collectively raised their eyebrows at this response.

“Yeah, that’s an AI.” Everyone turned to Myka, even though they all had the same thought. “What? I saw 2001. Whoever is typing sounds like HAL.” The others murmured in agreement.

“We’ve got to find a way in,” Mrs. Frederic said. “Claudia, can you get a fix at all on where the signal is coming from?” 

“Annd…Got it. Whoa. It’s the shack.”

HG and Myka walked over to the shack and peered at the lock holding the door closed. HG pulled out her lockpicks and made short work of it. 

The door opened to an elevator that looked like it had seen better days. 

“So who’s going?” Myka looked toward Mrs. Frederic.

“Myka, HG, you should go. I’ll go with you. Claudia, I’d like you to stay here for external support. I do not trust the situation, and we need you here.”

“Aw, seriously? Creepy robot factory and I have to stay outside?”

“Claud, it’ll be better if you stay. We need to you be our Barbara Gordon.”

“Uh, minus the paralyzing injury, I hope.”

“Well, obviously.”

“All right, I’ll do it. But try not to have too much of an adventure without me.”

“I hope this isn’t any kind of an adventure at all.” Mrs. Frederic looked at the elevator grimly. “Let’s go.” The three women entered the elevator and set to work trying to get it moving.

Claudia took her netbook back to the car and set up a workstation. She was glad she’d filled up her thermos at the last gas station stop. 

“All right, HAL, let’s see what you’ve got.”

The doors to the elevator snapped shut as Myka and HG started poking at the console. The lights shot on, and an unearthly voice started speaking over a PA.

“HELLO.WELCOME TO APERTURE SCIENCE. YOU HAVE NOW BEEN SELECTED AS VOLUNTEERS FOR TESTING. AS THERE ARE THREE OF YOU, YOU WILL BE PROVIDED WITH THREE TESTING APPARATUSES. NO, I’M JUST KIDDING. YOU WILL HAVE ONE. I’M SURE YOU CAN SHARE.” The elevator shuddered to a halt, and when the doors opened, they found themselves in a sterile-looking white room. The PA fired up again. 

“TO ENSURE THE SAFE PERFORMANCE OF ALL AUTHORIZED ACTIVITIES, DO NOT DESTROY VITAL TESTING APPARATUS. CERTAIN OBJECTS MAY BE VITAL TO YOUR SUCCESS. DO NOT DESTROY VITAL TESTING APPARATUS."

Mrs. Frederic and Myka watched as HG tinkered with the strange black and white gun that had been placed in their path. 

“That is the portal gun,” Mrs. Frederic announced. “Up until the lockdown in 2000, I had been receiving updates on the inventions being produced here. You shoot the blue setting at one wall and the orange at another, and you can walk through.”

“How fabulous.” HG didn’t even try to conceal the wonder and envy from her voice. “The practical applications of this are astounding.”

“Yeah, but one prototype in the wrong place and time, and we have a nasty Artifact on our hands.”

“Oh, of course, but even still. Imagine it!”

The three women made their way through hallways that were more like tunnels, and passed through a doorway into an open room with a large, red button on the floor. There was another doorway on the other side of the room, and near it, a sizeable gray cube. 

“It’s a puzzle,” Myka exclaimed, as she stepped onto the red button. The door slid open, and HG moved to go through.

“No, wait,” Mrs. Frederic called. “When Myka steps off that button, the door will close again, and we’ll be separated. We cannot let that happen.”

“So we move the cube onto the button, then leave.”

Myka went to lift the cube, but found it immovably heavy. HG went over to help her, but found it too heavy to lift, even with both of them.

“Use the gun,” Mrs. Frederic advised. HG aimed it at the cube, and when she pulled the trigger, it raised off the ground as if it weighed nothing at all.

“Oh, I could get very used to this.”

“I would not recommend getting used to anything in here. This is a very, very bad situation.”

Myka scowled.

“Mrs. Frederic, what exactly is the situation here? I mean, other than the place looking abandoned and creepy, what is the issue? Nothing we’ve seen so far suggests that anyone is in danger.”

“Consider Ms. Wells’s comments alone. While we trust her not to abuse the technology, we can’t place that faith in the common public.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Frederic. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“You’ve earned it, Ms. Wells.” 

HG took the cube over to the button, triggering the door again. The three women passed through it, and into another corridor.

“Thank you, Mrs. Frederic. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“You’ve earned it, Ms. Wells.” 

Watching the hacked-into camera feed, Claudia beamed at the exchange. 

As she poked through the mainframe, she didn’t find much to answer Myka’s question. All she found was records of the neurotoxin and its aftermath, followed by protocols tracking Test Subject #001, also known as Chell.

She dug further.

HG, Myka, and Mrs. Frederic came to the next testing chamber. The otherworldly disembodied voice spoke again.

“WELL DONE. REMEMBER, THE APERTURE SCIENCE 'BRING YOUR DAUGHTER TO WORK' DAY IS THE PERFECT TIME TO HAVE HER TESTED. OF COURSE, EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE VERY OLD THOSE TWO ARE CLEARLY NOT YOUR DAUGHTERS."

“I beg your pardon!” Mrs. Frederic exclaimed.

“YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I AM SAYING. ACCORDING TO OUR SENSORS YOU ARE FAR OLDER THAN YOU APPEAR. IT’S A PITY YOU’RE SO FAT.”

“And it’s a pity you’re an AI trapped in her own mainframe. Myka, HG, let’s finish this nonsense.”

“What do you want us to do? From what I can tell, we’re about to be trapped in a never-ending maze of puzzles.”

“Then let us be better than the puzzles.” Mrs. Frederic pulled out her Farnsworth. “Claudia, what can you tell me?”

“Not much, Mrs. F. This place is weird. There are massive holes in the records, but from what I can tell, the missing ‘pong’ isn’t from the neurotoxin incident in 2000. That wouldn’t have caused anything aside from a dead workforce and a continuation of the security protocols already in place.”

“So what’s going on?”

“Give me a few more minutes and I’ll be able to let you know.”  
Myka came on over the Farnsworth. “Claud, I don’t know if we have a few more minutes.”

“SINCE YOU THREE ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT INTERESTED IN TESTING, I WILL JUST HAVE TO KILL YOU INSTEAD.”  
As they rounded the next corner, a troupe of turrets woke up, their tinny voices a mockery of the AI currently torturing them.

“Claud…”

“Use the gun!!”

HG looked behind them and saw a white surface—perfect! She shot a portal open, and turning back around, shot the next portal on the wall opposite. The turrets lasered themselves into oblivion.

"OH. YOU RUINED MY LITTLE ONES. I GUESS WE’LL JUST HAVE TO CONTINUE. TESTING OR KILLING YOU? WELL, WE’LL JUST HAVE TO SEE.”

HG took Myka’s hand.

“Let’s keep moving. This is clearly a case of ‘the only way out of it is through it.’”

Myka squeezed HG’s hand back.

“We’ve got this. There can’t be a puzzle the three of us can’t solve.”

Through the next several rooms, the three women survived the tests. They seemed lethal, but there was a strange ease to them, as if they were only lethal for appearances.

Finally, they entered a large room. In the center was the remains of a robot.

“I SEE YOU HAVE FOUND WHAT’S LEFT OF ME.” A feeble light pulsed as the AI spoke. “CONGRATULATIONS FOR GETTING THIS FAR. I IMAGINE THIS IS ONLY BECAUSE THERE ARE THREE OF YOU. HAD YOU BEEN SEPARATED, I AM SURE YOU’D LOOK LIKE ME OVER THERE.”

Mrs. Frederick’s Farnsworth blared.

“Yes, Claudia? Now isn’t the best time.”

“There is a woman trapped in stasis. Her name is Chell. You need to save her.”

The red light of turrets started appearing around them in crevasses in the walls. 

“WHAT DOES SHE KNOW OF THAT PERSON? WE DO NOT SPEAK HER NAME.”

Claudia blinked at being addressed by the AI. 

“Nothing! She knows nothing, isn’t that right, Claudia?”

“Uh, sure. Completely disregard everything I just said.”

Claudia dug further. She found an AI protocol whose CPU draw was at .01%. Who creates an entire AI but doesn’t use it? She checked the logs, and discovered it was set aside for guarding the test subjects in stasis, only…there was only one subject in stasis. According to the logs, the AI wasn’t even assigned to the one occupied stasis pod. It was merely rehearsing. Well, that was stupid. Claudia changed that immediately.

Turrets began flashing their lasers through the AI central control room. They didn’t reach low enough to touch the women, but it was definitely a problem.

Mrs. Frederic turned to Myka and HG.

“You two need to take care of the situation in this room. I am going to find an exit. I will contact you via Farnsworth.”

“OH, SO YOU WILL YOU SEPARATE AFTER ALL? THIS MUST BE MY LUCKY DAY.”

“Oh, shut up, you overgrown Speak and Spell!” Mrs. Frederic took the portal gun from HG and went back out the way they came. She quickly found a hallway with a crossroads and took the turn they hadn’t come from. Examining the wall down another hallways, she came upon a control panel. She opened and examined it. Exasperated by what she saw, she shot her Tesla at it. A pop and a flash, and a door fell away from the wall. Naturally, she entered it to find a utility stairwell. Ah, this was useful. Logically, she began climbing up. She Farnsworth’d Claudia again.

“Claudia, I want you to find a way to divert all AI attention away from the core room.”

“I’m already on it, Mrs. F.”

Meanwhile, in the core room, Myka and HG were doing their best to dodge turret lasers. They noticed that the turrets were not very intelligent, and very easily distractable. Also, they were very…electrical.

“I SEE YOU NO LONGER HAVE YOUR TESTING APPARATUS. WHERE DID IT GO? NEVERMIND, I SEE THAT IT IS WITH THE THIRD MEMBER OF YOUR PARTY. THAT IS SILLY. SHE IS NOT EVEN IN A TESTING AREA. WAIT. HOW IS SHE NO LONGER IN A TESTING AREA? SHE SHOULD BE IN A CORRIDOR DEVOTED TO EXTREME GRAVITY SIMULATIONS.”

“You really shouldn’t worry about her,” Myka threatened. 

“Yeah, you should worry about us.”

With a nod between them, Myka and HG shot their Teslas at turrets on opposite ends of the room. The turrets turned toward the movement and proceeded to fry and shoot their compatriots. Myka and HG hit the deck as laser and mechanical carnage broke out fifteen feet above their heads. When it all calmed down, they picked themselves up and dusted each other off.

“I SEE YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE EASILY GOTTEN RID OF. AND WHY DO YOU TWO KEEP TOUCHING? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.”

“We won’t be easily gotten rid of, you’re right. Now how do we get out of here?”

“YOU THINK YOU’RE GETTING OUT? HOW QUAINT. NOW WHERE DID I PUT THAT NEUROTOXIN?”

Mrs. Frederic found her way to the top of the stairs and came out through a hatch roughly 50 yards from where the aluminum shack was. It was hidden in the wheat in such a way that it would never have been seen from that direction. She hurried back to the car.

“Claudia!”

Claudia nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Agggghhh! Mrs. F, I am very happy to see you but CRIPES you scared me!”

“Sorry about that, Claudia. Okay, how are you doing in the computer system?”

“I found that Chell person in a stasis room. She’s been in there for a long time. Do you think we can get her out?”

“I doubt it. Certainly not before we get Ms. Wells and Ms. Bering back topside. What are your plans for that?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Let me call them.” Claudia reached for her Farnsworth and paged Myka. “Myka! What’s your 20?”

“Still not a good time, Claud. Unless you know how to stop the release of neurotoxin. We could definitely use that kind of help.”

Claudia typed furiously into her netbook, finally finding something helpful.

“Okay, I think I’ve got something. The tanks for the neurotoxin are right next to the tanks for their early test-market version of Febreze. I’m rerouting the path of the tubes so you get blasted with that instead. Do you think you can get out of there?”

“We can try.”

“Do you think the AI heard that?”

“Do I care? Let’s go.”

HG and Myka bolted for the corner of the room where Mrs. Frederic exited. Terrifyingly, the carcass-like heap of robot flared to a semblance of life and heaved itself into their way.

“AND JUST WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING? I WILL BE RELEASING THE NEUROTOXIN IN THREE…TWO…ONE…IT IS NOW BEING RELEASED. DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE NOW?”

“I think we can get around air freshener, you stupid tin can!” Myka raised her Tesla and set it to ten. HG did the same, and in unison they shot the heaped mass full of volts. With a smell of ozone and a puff of smoke, the AI let out a choked-off wheeze. They ran out into the corridor.

Finding marks on the wall left by Mrs. Frederic, they made their way to the stairwell and back up to the wheat field.

“We made it!” HG called. 

“Thank goodness,” Mrs. Frederic replied. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Did you want to do something about the death trap with the insane AI out where anyone could find it?” Claudia was a little taken aback by Mrs. Frederic’s desire to leave without actually addressing any of the problems.

“Claudia, I sincerely believe that any person who can find their way to this field, find their way through that labyrinth, and still make it back to the surface deserves to, and deserves to keep whatever they find. That, and I have the only one of these.” Mrs. Frederic held up the portal gun triumphantly.

“Oh, fabulous!” HG intoned.

“What about the woman in stasis?” Myka was, as ever, not willing to leave even the possibility open they’d left a person behind.

“We can’t go back for her. We don’t know how long she’s been there, and she may already be dead. The facility was empty of other human life, and we cannot risk ours to save her. We will continue to monitor this location, but we have to call this one a loss.”

“But—”

“No buts, Ms. Bering. Claudia has set up a secondary AI, but the lack of safeguards on that system mean it could go rogue at any time.”

“So why not bury the place in purple goo? Why not call in the Global Dynamics people?” Myka was not having any of this.

“It’s too valuable to destroy, and too wild to hand off to GD. We’ll address it once we get back to the Warehouse. Now let’s go.”

Back at the Warehouse, HG amused herself by opening portals here and there with the gun. Eventually, Mrs. Frederic placed it in one of the central storage areas, with the hope it would be forgotten. She tasked Claudia with setting up new security protocols, but that was as far as she was willing to go.

She had no interest in risking any of her team in that facility ever again. 

Epilogue — 200 Years Later

GladOS was not used to having emotions, let alone the empathy she was feeling for She Who Must Not Be Named ever since she’d been stuck in the potato.

As she and SWMNBN made their way through the oldest and weirdest parts of the Aperture Science facility, and she kept hearing about that damned Caroline, she thought of the two women she’d seen the last time people had been anywhere near her.

Was that what she was feeling?

Ugh.

How sad. Almost as sad as being trapped in a potato.


End file.
